75 HENRY IV.-PART I. NEARLY all the most important events in the reign of Henry Bolingbroke are referred to in the two plays which bear his name. "The First Part of Henry the Fourth" commences with the announcement (continued from "Richard the Second") of Henry's intention to make an expedition to the Holy Land. I cannot trace this intention at this early period of the reign. If it existed, it was soon superseded by the two occurrences of the year 1402, which are mentioned in the first scene, and which bring to our notice those two remarkable characters, Owen Glendower and Henry Hotspur.* Owen had defeated the English troops in June 1402, and captured Edmund Mortimer; Hotspur had in September, at the head of the King's troops in the north, defeated the Scots at Homildon,+ when the Earl of Fife, eldest son of * Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, eldest son of the Northumberland of whom we heard in "Richard the Second." Hotspur was born in 1365 or 1366. ↑ This battle was fought on the 14th of September, 1402, the Duke of Albany,* and Archibald Earl of Douglas,† were taken prisoners. The Chronicle is followed as to the Welsh and Scottish battles. The defeat and capture of Mortimer by Owen Glendower, and the maltreatment of the dead bodies by the Welsh women, are related almost in the words of Holinshed. And all historians agree that Hotspur's victory at Homildon was won by the English archers.§ "With violence of the English shot the Scots were quite vanquished and put to flight:" this sentence of Holinshed is probably the origin of a line in Shakspeare conveying an idea of a very different weapon from the bow 66 Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour; As by discharge of their artillery, And shape of likelihood, the news was told."|| near Wooler, within the English border.-See Hol. iii. 20; Tytler's Scotland, iii. 128; Lingard, iv. 387. * Steevens explains (Bosw. 187) how Shakspeare was misled by the omission of a comma in Holinshed (iii. 21) into calling Fife "eldest son to beaten Douglas." Here is a curious illustration of the importance of punctuation, and of Shakspeare's reliance upon the Chronicler. Albany was brother to King Robert the Third. + Archibald Douglas, fourth Earl of Douglas, surnamed the Tineman, i. e. Loseman, from his repeated defeats and miscarriages. (Walter Scott's preface to 'Halidon Hill.') On the present occasion he lost not only his liberty but an eye. (Otterbourne, 245.) He was slain 1424, fighting in France against the Duke of Bedford. Hol. 20. § Otterbourne, 237. || Acti. Sc. 1. Westmoreland, who gives this description, The denial of the prisoners, of which Shakspeare makes so much, is mentioned by Holinshed, on the authority of Hardyng,* who says that Northumberland gave up his prisoner, namely, the Earl of Fife; "But Sir Henry his son then would not bring His prisoners in no wise to the King." As a follower of the Percies, Hardyng is entitled to credit on this point, but the King's demand of the prisoners does not appear among the alleged causes of rebellion, nor is it dwelt upon by other writers of the time. The only official document with which I am acquainted prohibits the captors from permitting their prisoners to return to Scotland on ransom, but does not require the persons or value of the captives, and contains an especial salvo of the rights of the captors.† was Ralph Neville, Lord Neville of Raby, created Earl of Westmoreland by Richard the Second. The Earl of Abergavenny is his lineal descendant and heir male.-Colings, v. 151. * P. 360, Hol. 22, Hall, 27. + Writ directed to the two Percies and others, 22d Sept. 1402-Rymer, vol. viii. 278. A commentator says (Bosw. 188) that by the law of arms any man who had taken any captive whose redemption did not exceed 10,000 crowns had him clearly to himself, either to acquit or ransom at his pleasure. The indentures of service sometimes contained a special reserve as to prisoners of great importance. (See Rymer, ix. 233.) It does not seem at all unreasonable that The mention of Hotspur's bravery introduces the name of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry the Fifth. "No words," says Campbell,* "can do justice to the discriminating traits of valorous character in Prince Henry, in Hotspur, in Douglas, in Owen Glendower. The first rises to glory out of previous habits and pursuits that would have extinguished any character unpossessed of the unquenchable Greek fire in Henry of Agincourt, and who shines, as Homer said of Diomed like a star that had been bathed in the ocean.' He is comparatively wiser than the irascible Hotspur, and therefore more justly successful. The Scottish Douglas retreats at last, but it is only when the field is lost, and he had slain three warriors who were the semblance of the King. He was personally little interested in the fray, his reputation could afford him to retreat without expense to his honour, and therefore he shows after prodigal valour a discretion which is quite as nationally characteristic as his courage. Owen Glendower is a noble wild picture of the heroic Welsh character— brave, vain, imaginative, and superstitious. He was the William Wallace of Wales, and his vanity and superstition may be forgiven, for he troubled the English till the King should, on great occasions, interfere to prohibit the setting free a prisoner who might be dangerous to the realm. In his preface to a new edition of Shakspeare, p. xxxix. they believed him, and taught him to believe himself, a conjuror." Much of this is just-as applicable to the heroes whom Shakspeare drew: I shall now inquire whether he drew from history. A passage at the end of the play of "Richard the Second," prepares us for the unfavourable picture of the young Henry's behaviour, which fills so great a space in the two parts of "Henry the Fourth." Boling. Can no man tell of my unthrifty son ? "Tis full three months since I did see him last :— If any plague hang over us, 'tis he. Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there, After some further detail of his extravagancies, Hotspur himself is made to relate that he saw the Prince two days before, who, on being invited to an exercise of arms at Oxford, gave an answer indicative both of profligacy and boldness; so as to induce his father to say 65 As dissolute as desperate; yet through both I see some sparkles of a better hope, Which elder days may happily bring forth." Malone noticed the anachronism of ascribing these habits to the Prince, who, having been born in 1387, was now only thirteen years old: but no * "Richard the Second," Act v. Sc. 3. † Bosw. 152. |